The tree sits atop the enclosing bank of a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular earthen ringfort of the kind built and occupied throughout the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands of these structures survive across the Irish countryside, many so worn down by agriculture that they are barely legible in the landscape. This one at Ballynoe occupies a gentle north-facing slope in undulating terrain, with a marshy area adjoining to the northwest, and retains enough of its original form to give a clear sense of what it once was.

The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national monuments record in August 2011. The rath measures approximately 27.5 metres north to south, enclosed by an earthen bank and an external fosse, which is simply a ditch dug around the outside to reinforce the barrier created by the bank. The fosse here runs to a depth of around 0.9 metres and nearly two metres wide, with the bank itself rising 1.5 metres on its outer face. The eastern side of the bank is the best preserved stretch. Elsewhere, cattle have worn the bank down over time, opening gaps on the south-southwest and southwest sides. Field boundaries, likely added in the post-medieval period, cross the fosse at the south and north-northeast, where they abut rather than cut through the enclosing bank, suggesting some degree of respect for the older structure even as the land around it was reorganised.

The interior is level and largely under grass, though the centre and the northeast quadrant have been colonised by dense overgrowth, which makes that portion difficult to explore on foot. The bank itself carries a mixture of ash and thorn in addition to the prominent beech at the south-southeast. Because the site sits in working pasture, access would depend on the landowner's permission, and the ground near the marshy northwest corner is likely to be soft underfoot in wetter months. Those who do get a look should pay attention to the eastern arc of the bank, where the profile is clearest, and to the relationship between the old fosse and the later field boundaries, which tells a quiet story about how successive generations have continued to work around a structure they did not build and may not have fully understood.